Juan Serralde
Editor’s Note: The pandemic is impacting everyone involved in the food industry. Here, el Restaurante contributing writer Joseph Sorrentino shares a first-person account story of how Mexico’s chinamperos—the people who farm produce in the area known as the chinampería—are adapting their businesses to survive.
By Joseph Sorrentino, writing from Mexico
A two-minute walk down a narrow concrete path leading from Belizario Dominguez—one of San Gregorio Atlapulco’s main streets—brings you to another world. The noise, traffic and dust disappear, replaced by a silence broken only by the chirping of birds and acre upon acre of vegetables and flowers. You’ve stepped into the chinampería, an agricultural system whose existence dates back 4,000 years.
The chinampería consists of small islands called chinampas, usually around 10’x100’, that were built in the shallow waters of lakes in what is now Mexico City. Although sometimes called floating gardens, chinampas don’t float. They were built—and still are—by sinking branches of a tree called huejote into the lake bed and then filling it with mud and vegetation. Canals separate the chinampas, allowing chinamperos (people who farm there) to travel by canoe. Chinamperos have seen many challenges over the millennia and are now facing one more: the coronavirus.
Adapting to Survive
By early April, Minerva Gonzalez and her family knew they had to change their way of doing business if they were to survive the pandemic. Before the virus hit, these chinamperos sold mainly to restaurants. Once restaurants closed, their sales dried up, their produce rotted, and their situation became precarious.
Margarita Vega Honorato, Gonzalez’s mother-in-law, took me on a tour of the family’s land. She pointed to row after row of lettuce that was going to seed and would soon be plowed under. “Before [the virus] we sold everything,” she said. “Now, we sell almost nothing.” Her daughter-in-law added, “Thousands in el campo are suffering because we cannot sell our products. Agriculture is the base of everything in Mexico.”
With restaurants closed, Gonzalez and Coat Rufino, her husband, have started selling directly to people in the city. “We are using social media,” said Rufino. “People send us a list and when we are in front of their home, we text them.” They had five customers the first week they advertised. They now have around twenty.
The family spends a couple of days harvesting food that they’ll bring into the city, sometimes stopping to buy foods they don’t grow. Ruffino acknowledged the risk of doing business in this way but said they take precautions, “We wear gloves, masks. We just hand over the food, they pay and that is all.” He takes an extra precaution with his mother. While she works alongside him to harvest, “They will not let me go with them to the city,” Vega Honorato said.
Gonzalez and Rufino are up at 6:00 in the morning on Mondays to prepare for a day in the city stuffing produce into the back seat and trunk of their small car. They sell mostly in Coyoacán and when they reach there, they park in front of a large apartment complex. Gonzalez organizes the orders while Ruffino sends texts. Soon, people, most wearing masks, begin to show up.
“They’re from the chinampa...and I want to support them,” said Raquel Louctalot, a regular customer. “The food lasts longer, it is fresher...it is much cheaper than the stores.”
Rufino and Gonzalez are adjusting to doing business with new customers. “People in Coyoacán want different things than people in San Gregorio,” said Gonzalez. “We are planting bok choy, more kale, purple broccoli.” The couple gives every customer some free produce saying, “It is a regalito (a small gift).”
Many chinamperos sell their produce in Mexico City’s Central de Abastos, the world’s largest market. It covers a little over 800 acres and with more than 300,000 people passing through it daily, it’s no surprise it’s a center for the viral outbreak. Despite this, Juan and Erick Serralde still deliver their produce there. “I go to the city for necessity, to provide for my family,” Juan said. “I have to keep working because there is nothing else.” They take precautions, including wearing a mask, gloves and spraying themselves with disinfectants. Lately, they’re earning less money. “It is because of two things: there are fewer people out buying,” Juan said, “and they have less money to spend because they are not working.” So, they’ve also begun delivering produce directly to customers in the city, mostly in La Condesa, an upscale neighborhood. “We earn some money and it helps people who are in quarantine,” said Erick.
San Gregorio has the highest number of infections in all of Mexico City and the municipal government recently banned street vendors, many of whom were chinamperos selling their produce. There’s much uncertainty about what else the government might do. “If they prohibit everything, we will still have vegetables here, we will have rice” said Rufino. “I do not know if we can sell what we have but we will keep working.”